(a) Layout example of Facebook
(b) Layout of Facebook reinvented in Unity
Figure 5.11: In this picture there are the default Facebook layout of a page 5.11a and its counterpart re-imagined in Unity5.11b
Figure 5.12: UI controls and info during the obstacles race
answers (see Fig. 5.13a), the majority of the testers are between 25 and 34 years old and almost half of them between 45 and 54 years old. Many of the users navigate on Facebook, indeed, 5 out of 12, while the others spread between Whatsapp, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram (see Fig. 5.13b). Almost everyone was fully convinced that Facebook is an ideal candidate for this game (see Fig. 5.14a) and so that the social component is important for it (see Fig. 5.14b). But, except Facebook, the majority of the testers think that Instagram is the candidate that fits the most with it (see Fig.
5.15a). About the activities proposed in the game, users would like to push the most on the interaction with players, then on mini-games and, at third place, on planning activities like parties, important events, team games and more (see Fig. 5.15b).
Now comes the System Usability Scale part. After playing the game, players could carry out this part. We can see that users enjoy playing the game and that they are keen on playing it frequently, except one rare case. Many answered that the complexity of the app is quite balanced, even if the half of them think that on some points it was complex without the need to be so, but in others it was made simple (see Fig. 5.16). But, many of them assert that the application was very easy to use,
5.4. Subjective Evaluation tests 65 even though, at the same time, several needed help from someone who knew the app already (see Fig. 5.17). The average thinks that the implemented features were well integrated, even if half of them is half convinced. About the inconsistencies between the app features we find a center of mass pending more towards the lower values, so the users deny it, but one small fraction admits not to find it consistent in some small parts (see Fig. 5.18). The testers say that most of the people can learn how to use the app very easily. They state also that the commands were not hard to master but they were quite cumbersome to control the player (see Fig. 5.19). Lat but not least, many of the testers were very familiar with the app during the trial but almost half of them had to re-iterate on some processes to master at best the app itself (see Fig.
5.20).
So it is evident that the application still needs loads of development and optimiza-tion, but the prototype helped to gain data to understand towards which direction head to.
(a) Average users age (b) Most used social by the users
(a) Chart describing what users think about Face-book as an ideal candidate for the app
(b) Chart showing how much users think social component is important for the app
Figure 5.14: On the left we have the response about the presence of Facebook in the game 5.14awhile on the right the answers about the importance of the presence of social components in the app5.14b
(a) The chart shows that users would like to see Instagram, after Facebook, in the game
(b) The chart demonstrates that users would like to enhance the interaction with players first, then mini-games and organization of big events
Figure 5.16: Average users response on app usability and complexity
Figure 5.17: Average users response on app difficulty of use and need of qualified helper
5.4. Subjective Evaluation tests 67
Figure 5.18: Average users response on app features integration
Figure 5.19: Average users response on other’s difficulty to try the game and about the complexity of the interactions
Figure 5.20: Average users response on how familiar they were with the use of the app and about the need to repeat some operations in order to learn how to use it
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Chapter 6
Conclusions and Future Work
The proposed work, as mentioned above, described the development of the prototype of an MMO game strongly related to social media, in this case, Facebook. The purpose it wants to fulfill is to manage to bring the social media experience to the new and future metaverse culture. So, players can watch their social media activities, like before, while playing with an MMO game. So, when players enter the application, a 3D counterpart of their Facebook account is generated and they can navigate each section by moving their avatar with the controls. They can play mini-games with their friends too. Nowadays, this kind of work is becoming really viral. Think about Facebook Horizons that now is going to amplify the work introducing new retro games to increase the catchment area. If this work goes on, for the future, first of all it is important to establish a robust contract with Facebook and with the other social platforms that will join the application in the future. Facebook now has planned to change the name to Meta. The name itself shows Facebook full commission to push forward with metaverse development and to make users get used with this new reality, that is focused to be the new paradigm of social media.
Even if the prototype is done, it does not gather all the features the application is going to host. In the future, players will be able to do the following activities too:
• send invitations to Facebook friends that haven’t joined the game yet;
• since players can meet around new people, they can add them as Facebook friends, through the application;
• players will also have the opportunity to publish content to Facebook, from the game, and this content may be: shared posts or photos taken inside the application;
• the photos that they will take, can be saved into the gallery and the latter can be opened through the Main Menu or by pausing the game;
• as shown in pictures4.6, there will be two menus: one when starting the game and another one when pausing it. Both will let the player do the following actions:
– enter the options to adjust audio and video settings;
– watch and/or publish the photos in the gallery;
– invite friends to play the game;
– logout and switch account;
– resume or quit the game;
• players will be able to customize their house, their avatar, their pet and their town too, by adding new buildings hosting new activities to do;
– the customization includes the purchase of new stuff, thanks to a fee;
– but first of all, the game will propose a style based on player’s Facebook preferences like: followed pages, movies and music liked and so on;
• the game will be open to other platforms in the future, if possible, e.g.: Virtual Reality. Indeed, players will be able to wear an immersive device and to follow their avatar around the map. Thanks to this device it will be possible to develop new interesting activities to do;
• avatars may display a floating window where players can show their content to others, everywhere around the map;
• there will be a dynamic weather that can be synced to the one of player’s real location;
• users will set a way point through the map to orientate;
• the app will be open to host the creation of several activities from the players, like it happens with the most famous metaverse games (see Ref. [23]);
• the hub is still incomplete, indeed it misses the global Feed, so players can see the activities of all of their friends at once, and interact with it like they do inside their homes;
• players will be able to gather and party when one of their friend will have the birthday or in other important occasions, inside the garden of their house;
• players will also play several mini-games and take special photos;
• to interact each other, there will be, not only a global chat but also other social actions like: waving your hand in front of a player, dancing, inviting someone to follow you, etc;
• the game will save automatically every time the player does an important action;
• users will also be able to pet their fellow animal or to play with it;
• Another job to do is improve the connections to guarantee a better download of the content or a good connection on the server to support a larger and larger number of connections per session.
• lastly, since the Facebook SDK for Unity has a pre-built redirection for mobile devices, the Desktop application lacks of a login path.
• Another feature to decide is to place a unique building between the houses, by choice of the player, like a tennis club or basketball field, and unlock that activity.
• The game needs to optimize, especially in the mobile version, where a lower amount of CPU and RAM consumption is needed.
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Appendix A
Project source codes
A.1 Grid generation
Source Code A.1: Spiral grid generetion code
1 p u b l i c v o i d S p a w n S p i r a l G r i d ( D i c t i o n a r y <string, string> f r i e n d s )
2 {
3 f o r e a c h ( K e y V a l u e P a i r <string, string> kvp in f r i e n d s ) 4 D e b u g . Log (s t r i n g. F o r m a t (" ID : {0} , N A M E : {1} ", kvp . Key ,
kvp . V a l u e ) ) ;
5 f l o a t c o l s = (f l o a t) f r i e n d s . C o u n t ;
6 // d i v i d e n u m b e r of f r i e n d s per all the f r i e n d s t h a t can s t a n d in a s q u a r e d p e r i m e t e r a r o u n d the s q u a r e
7 f l o a t m a x i m u m = 20;
8 // u n d e r s t a n d how m a n y r o w s of h o u s e s to s p a w n 9 w h i l e ( c o l s / m a x i m u m > 1) m a x i m u m += 8;
10 f l o a t m a x _ d e l t a = M a t h f . C e i l ( c o l s / m a x i m u m ) ; 11 if ( m a x _ d e l t a == 0) m a x _ d e l t a = 3;
12 e l s e m a x _ d e l t a += 2;
13 int m a x _ f r i e n d s = f r i e n d s . C o u n t ;
14 int o f f s e t = -1 , l a t o _ f o r o = 7 , d e l t a = 0 , f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r = 0 , max , c , r , h a l f _ d o n e , tmp ;
15
16 w h i l e ( d e l t a < m a x _ d e l t a )
17 {
18 max = l a t o _ f o r o + d e l t a ;
19 c = o f f s e t ;
20 h a l f _ d o n e = 0;
21 tmp = o f f s e t ;
22
23 w h i l e ( h a l f _ d o n e < 2)
24 {
25 for ( r = tmp ; r < max ; r ++)
26 {
27 if ( o f f s e t % 2 != 0)
28 S p a w n P l a n e ( r , c ) ;
29 e l s e
30 {
31 if ( r % 2 != 0)
32 S p a w n P l a n e ( r , c ) ;
33 e l s e // D e c i d e W e t h e r to P l a c e a H o u s e or a
R o a d a c c o r d i n g to f r i e n d s r e m a i n i n g
34 f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r = C h e c k R e m a i n i n g P l a y e r s ( r , c , f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r , m a x _ f r i e n d s , f r i e n d s ) ;
35 }
36 }
37 // p r e p a r e for the o t h e r h a l f of the s p i r a l
38 if ( h a l f _ d o n e > 0)
39 {
40 max - -;
41 r = o f f s e t ;
42 tmp = o f f s e t + 1;
43 }
44 for ( c = tmp ; c < max ; c ++)
45 {
46 if ( o f f s e t % 2 != 0)
47 S p a w n P l a n e ( r , c ) ;
48 e l s e
49 {
50 if ( c % 2 != 0)
51 S p a w n P l a n e ( r , c ) ;
52 e l s e
53 f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r = C h e c k R e m a i n i n g P l a y e r s ( r , c , f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r , m a x _ f r i e n d s , f r i e n d s ) ;
54 }
55 }
56 if ( h a l f _ d o n e == 0) max ++;
57 h a l f _ d o n e ++;
58 }
59 d e l t a ++;
60 offset - -;
61 }
62 }
63 p r i v a t e int C h e c k R e m a i n i n g P l a y e r s (int r , int c , int
f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r , int m a x _ f r i e n d s , D i c t i o n a r y <string, string>
f r i e n d s )
64 {
65 if ( f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r < m a x _ f r i e n d s )
66 {
67 S p a w n H o u s e ( r , c , f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r , f r i e n d s ) ; 68 f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r ++;
69 }
70 e l s e
71 S p a w n P l a n e ( r , c ) ;
72 r e t u r n f r i e n d s _ c o u n t e r ;
73 }
74